CURSED; a fear street trilogy

Chapter eight: The Hanging Tree

I HAD RAN BACK INTO TOWN TO CLEAR SARAH AND HANNAH'S NAMES. Finding out it was Solomon Goode changed things. I now properly cared that me own Mam wanted to have me hanged, things now felt more urgent because if I didn't tell someone it was Solomon then Sarah and Hannah would never be cleared.

Entering the town, I was startled to be pulled backwards by someone who had gripped my ear tightly. Once I was standing straight again, I saw my Mam looking back at me very angrily.

"Where the hell have you been?" She questioned with her arms crossed over her chest.

"I went to look for Sarah." I told her, attempting to stand my ground by standing straighter and taller, not a bend in my stance.

"Why the bloody hell would you do that?!"

"Because what more do I have to lose? You're already trying to get me hanged so I might as well give Sarah and Hannah everything I've got." I explained, raising my voice to match hers.

Mam was silent before she turned her head to look her shoulder. "Elijah! Elijah! I've got Elizabeth!" She shouted and, soon, Elijah and Caleb came jogging over to us.

"We'll go put her with Hannah." Caleb said before him and Elijah took one of my arms each. I wriggled around in the grip, trying to break free from them.

"No." Mam intervened. "I don't want her conjuring up an escape plan with that witch. Put her in the farmhouse."

"Mam!" I repeatedly shouted as the two adult men carried me over to the big barn that was bound to collapse at any given moment. "Mam! Please! It's not them! I know who it was! Solomon Goode! Please!"

Elijah and Caleb simply laughed at my accusation, dismissing it completely as they claimed "Solomon isn't capable of witchcraft" and "all the evidence points to Sarah and Hannah."

"I found the witch!"

The two men stopped as Solomon cried out, just as we reached the farmhouse. We looked over and they released me at the sigh of Solomon gripping Sarah's hair in his fist, forcing out of the meeting house. She was almost drowned in her own blood, and her hand was missing, her skin covered with dirt.

"No." I whimpered before rushing over to where the crowd formed around her and Solomon. "No!" This time I shouted.

I ran to Sarah, holding her face in both of me hands. "I know it's him." I whispered, "we can show them."

She shook her head, sobs escaping her mouth. "No. Let's this happen. If you keep quiet, they won't hang you. They'll show you mercy."

"Sarah..."

Caleb came up to pull me away from her but Isaac pushed in front of him. "I've got her." He told him, wrapping his arms around me waist as he gently took me away from the bloody girl.

The entire settlement walked to the hanging tree, Isaac keeping a hand in mine as we walked side by side. Sarah and Hannah were tied with chains that were dropped by their feet once we were at the tree, the two girls stood under its largest and lowest branch.

"The penalty for practicing witchcraft is death by hanging!" Elijah stated.

"Hang them!" The crowd shouted with the exception of Lizzie, Abi, Isaac and I, and Sarah and Hannah's parents.

"Confess!" Elijah ordered the two girls who involuntarily stood beside each other. "Confess your sins or burn in eternal hell. Confess!"

"Confess!" Mad Thomas screeched louder than any of the other shouts of the crowd.

My eyes didn't leave the two girls, feeling heavy and weak and tired. I could feel my lips begin to tremble and I so desperately wanted to tell the truth, to let people know it was Solomon but Sarah shook her head.

"Promise." She mouthed, and I knew what she meant. I nodded back reluctantly and with great hesitation, mouthing the word back and she then looked to Sarah with a sad expression.

"I confess!" Sarah shouted, getting everyone even more riled.

"No! She's lying!" Hannah protested but Sarah continued over her. Elijah's hand covered Hannah's mouth to keep her quiet.

"I walked with the Devil! I lay with him. I bewitched the good pastor. And I bewitched...Hannah Miller. I clouded her mind! I clouded her mind. It was me. It was me! It was only me. It was always me. Hannah's innocent."

"Let her go!" Solomon instructed Elijah who did as he was told and released her from the chains. Hannah cried and screamed but was handed back into her mother's arms.

Solomon then walked to Sarah, wrapping the chains tighter around her body and then, with the rage filled commands of the towns people, placed the noose over her head, throwing the rope over the branch and pulled her up, letting her body drop dead from the hanging tree.

"No!" I cried out in sob, going to push forward but Isaac grabbed my body, keeping pulled close into his whilst Sarah was buried beneath the tree, punished for sins that were not hers.

|||

"We can't just leave her here." Lizzie said as herself, Abi, Hannah Isaac and I dug up Sarah's body. "Alone underneath this tree."

"She deserves a proper burial." Abigail added.

"Let's move her, bury her somewhere else." Isaac said.

We lifted her body from the ground together, moving her into the woods where we re-buried her. Isaac carved "the witch lives forever" into a rock that was left under the tree and Sarah's name was carved onto the padlock of her chains.

We buried her where only we would know she was, by a large rock in the woods near where we had the party that night. Hannah placed her flower crown with Sarah's body before we covered her back up, leaving her to rest for eternity.